Osca IPO drills into oil services; Lucent eyes spinoff

CBS.MarketWatch.com

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Osca's IPO struck a sweet spot with investors as the $144 million oil and gas services firm's initial public offering rode a surging sector to solid gains Thursday. Hear: Radio report on Osca.

Meanwhile, the new-issues market may soon get a major addition in the form of a $40 billion spinoff of Lucent's
lu
microelectronics unit.

The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek reported that the equipment giant is mulling the move, but so far the company isn't confirming that. See related story.

And Rediff.com
redf
and August Technologies
augt
had their second day of trades after strong debuts Wednesday. Rediff.com posted a healthy day-two gain, while August moved fractionally higher. See related story.

The upcoming China Unicom
CHU, +1.71%
deal, a massive $4.7 billion IPO from one of China's leading wireless firms, was bumped to next week by lead underwriter Goldman Sachs. It's expected to price late Friday and trade next Wednesday.

Reuters reported Thursday that the deal is not expected to be massively oversubscribed, but institutional demand is seen as strong enough to support pricing at the higher end of an upped $17.71-to-$20.53 range.

China Unicom will be the heftiest deal in a busy IPO week. A flurry of deals are expected, including a debut by Palm rival Handspring
hand

Osca's arrival

Lafayette, La.-based Osca
osca
closed at 17 5/8, a gain of 14 percent over its $15.50 price. The stock opened at 17 and picked up steam in the open market on volume of 5.8 million.

Signs of a strong open came as it priced near the top of its $14-to-$16 range.

Osca's sparkle comes during a June surge in the oil services sector
OSX, +0.64%
which has been rising along with crude prices. See full story.

Osca is raising $144 million by selling 5.6 million shares with lead underwriter Salomon Smith Barney.

The company sells specialized oil- and gas-well completion fluids and related services and equipment to major oil companies and independent exploration and production companies.

It rang up $800,000 in profit on revenue of $92 million last year.

Dendreon

Dendreon
dndn
is plotting a Friday debut of its 4.5 million-share IPO at a range of $12 to $14 per share.

The Seattle-based company is looking to raise $59 million in proceeds with lead underwriter Prudential Securities.

The company discovers and develops immunologically based therapeutic products for the treatment of cancer.

Ben Holmes of IPOPros.com predicted a small premium for the stock, adding that drug discovery firms have been hard hit on Wall Street and that "I cannot recommend them in here."

EChapman.com

A tiny deal from Baltimore-based EChapman.com priced at $13 per share, the middle of its lowered $12-to-$14 range. It didn't open for trading on Thursday.

The company
ecmn
is offering 1.26 million shares in a bid to raise $16.4 million. The lead underwriter is its parent company, Chapman, which has co-managed several IPOs such as those of Agency.com and US Unwired.

EChapman founder Nathan A. Chapman Jr., 42, is also the founder of Chapman Co. EChapman bills itself as the first financial services Web site owned by an African-American.

The Web site offers both financial services and a variety of lifestyle, educational and cultural components targeting African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and women.

The company decreased its price range to $12 to $14 from $14 to $16 and decreased its number of shares to 1.7 million from 3.3 million.

Overseas deals

The coming IPO from China Unicom is part of a growing subfield of the new-issues market: the stateside introduction of American depositary receipts.

So far this year, the number of IPOs in the form of ADRs, which are U.S.-listed shares of overseas firms, has increased by 100 percent, according to CommScan analysts Janet Yee and Kristofer Williams.

And the number of companies that have filed to go public through ADRs is up 170 percent.

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